


Emotional Highs

by choppyVy



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Filler 2x10, Jace suicide attempt, M/M, Magnus has no experience with using magic on parabatai, Malec Love, Parabatai Feels, Post-Winter Finale, slightly accidentally drugged Alec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choppyVy/pseuds/choppyVy
Summary: Filler 2x10: The quiet moment holding and kissing a very much alive Magnus is interrupted by Alec's mind catching up with him, bringing with it the realization that he very much needs to find the parabatai he just left behind on his search for the warlock in his arms. Because how could he have missed what it had really meant, him walking into that hall to find Jace had activated that sword by accident ... having tried to kill himself in the process of destroying it.





	1. Chapter 1

It is not like all the problems in the world have disappeared with their I-Love-Yous.  
But sometimes … sometimes it is crucial to allow yourself to exist outside of that world of other people. And Magnus and Alec are more than ready to allow just that for each other. But there are people so close to them, shutting them out would do no one in the equation ever more good than harm.  
And so Alec had held on to Magnus outside the institute for as long as his mind had needed to process all that had just happened.  
Tight embrace only once in a while eased up on to fall back into kissing each other until this bubble, their bubble had burst, … the moment Alec’s mind had worked its way far enough through the night’s events that it had reached the point that still makes his whole body freeze right now, before it relaxes against Magnus again, unable to hold the tension as completely as he used to all those years that he had had to spent alone with his pain.  
“What just happened?” Magnus asks softly.  
“I remembered something,” Alec whispers into the fabric covering Magnus’s shoulder.  
Magnus feels Alec’s arms tighten around him as he asks, “Yes?” Magnus can hardly process how torn his boyfriend sounds with his next words.  
“I need to go find Jace.”  
Magnus feels Alec’s fingertips tighten into the fabric of his jacket now. And Magnus is sure now, Alec is begging him to not let him go alone. “What happened in there anyway?”  
“Valentine tricked him, he has no demon blood, the very opposite. He tricked Jace into activating the sword for him. The last time I saw Jace …, I … he, I was so scared I’d never get to hold you again, I … he was devastated that Valentine used him like that. And I … I couldn’t … I couldn’t ….I needed to find you. I just left him.”  
Magnus has never seen Alec cry before, despite the many reasons he has had to. And now he does not see it either, but he feels it. Alec’s tears running across the skin of his neck, where Alec has buried his face only deeper now. Alec’s body rocking in his arms already with the force of the sobs as the held out silence bursts.  
Magnus tries to strengthen his hold, let Alec know he has no intention of … suddenly though Alec rips himself back out of Magnus’s arms, taking three unsteady steps back, as he wildly wipes at his eyes, over and over, unable to stop his tears just yet as he chokes out, voice wet, “By the angle, I need … I need to get back to him. I didn’t, I didn’t know before quite what I was feeling, it was all muddled up inside me, but now, now that I’ve found you ….”  
Magnus dares take a few steps closer again at the acknowledgement of his presence, hums, reaching out, and pulling Alec closer again, back into his arms, “Darling.”  
“I feel his pain so clear now. I need to get back to him. I … I was so horrible to him.”  
“You were scared,” Magnus tries to sooth.  
Alec finds words this time, “Come with me? Please. I … I can’t … I don’t want to, … I need you both.”  
Magnus had never thought he would ever be this happy about one of his lovers admitting that he needed another man. But Jace is Alec’s and Alec is Jace’s and Magnus could not be happier at his shadowhunter admitting so freely to his feelings, his needs.  
Magnus cups Alec’s face with both hands, voice gently coxing Alec to meet his gaze as he breaths, “Darling,” one hand briefly ceasing its gentle hold on Alec’s skin as he weaves them a portal back into the institute, Alec’s room, “Lead the way.”  
They practically fall through the portal, as Alec crushes his lips into Magnus’s and are both smiling as they crash land in Alec’s room, Alec with one swift movement preventing Magnus from crashing into the wardrobe.  
Magnus is smiling wide, as he wipes the tears off Alec’s cheeks. “Let’s go find Jace.”  
Alec, swallowing hard nods, but reluctantly pulls back when Magnus makes for the bedroom door. “I’ll just quickly,” Alec gestures to his face.  
“Of course, go wash up. I’ll be right here.”  
Alec knows it should not make him this anxious turning away from Magnus, and taking the few steps towards the bathroom, but his heart is already racing as it had earlier, and all those emotions bleeding through from Jace’s side of the bond do not help.  
When Alec intertwines fingers again with Magnus he still feels deep confusion and with every step that they get closer to Jace’s room, where Alec is now sure he must have retreated to, the pain he feels grows.  
Alec does not stop at the closed door, one hand still intertwined with Magnus’s the other pushing the handle down, the door wide open as he rushes through, only now letting go of Magnus completely, as he sees Jace curled up on himself in the darkest corner of the room, just sitting there, on the hard wooden floors, back pressed against the wall, head buried in his hands, liquid dripping from them that Magnus does not have to taste to know it will be salty.  
Alec is instantly on the floor beside his parabatai, taking the crying man into his arms. Whispering “Jace. I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry I just left you like that. I couldn’t think straight without knowing that Magnus was safe, he is safe, Jace.”  
There is just silence then, Magnus sitting down beside the two men cowered on the ground, one hand gently running over Jace’s head of hair, the lingering glow blue as he tries to offer some soothing for the pain lodged in there.  
“I’m so sorry, Alec. I’m … I’m …, I almost killed the one person you ….”  
“Jace,” Alec’s voice grows firmer now, persistent, still holding on tight to the man in his arms not yet hugging back, “You did not kill anyone.”  
Jace trembles in Alec’s arms as he brings out the words, “All those downworlders.”  
“You did not do that, Jace. It was Valentine, not you,” Magnus adds, in the hopes that it will, in the knowledge that it often can help to hear the truth spoken from more than one person.  
“I made it possible,” Jace sobs.  
Alec, swallows hard, the full weight of what has happened forming more clearly in his head, his arms tightening even more on Jace, who is finally turning and hugging back. It is the only thing that makes saying these next words bearable. “Jace. You … I know I am the one who threw himself of a ledge not too long at all ago …,” maybe that precisely is why Alec cannot not say it, “… why would you try to kill yourself?”  
“… there is so much,” Jace just chockes out. “it was all too much. I would have finally done something good.”  
Alec cannot stand to imagine losing Jace, to that maniac Valentine of all people. “Jace,” Alec waits for Jace to look up at him, “You do good, so much of it, every day. I … I love you. Loosing you …, you must know … I need you to know, there is no possible trade off here. Losing either of you two … its not an either or situation at all. I need you, I need Magnus. You mean no less to me, because I met Magnus. I can feel the part of me that is you only stronger now, especially right now, when Magnus makes me feel so complete and you …” Alec can hardly say it, knows it will be so hard for Jace to hear said out loud, “when you feel so broken, in so much pain.”  
Minutes of a wildly sobbing Jace hanging on, just hanging on to Alec follow … until Jace brings out, “I can feel you too, how happy he makes you. I am so so happy for you. I thought I … getting rid of me might …, you used to be so sad always, I thought it might be my demon blood too that brought such unhappiness to my parabatai.”  
“But you don’t have demon blood,” Alec whispers in reassurance.  
“I don’t,” Jace agrees.  
“And even if you had it …, Jace, it would never, could never make me love you any less.”  
Magnus cannot help the spark these words not even directed at him light in him still. He is torn from the fuzzy warm feeling when he hears Jace all his name.  
“Magnus, can you make my head stop spinning, please?”  
Catching Alec’s eyes Magnus asks, “Are you sure? I can sedate you if you like.”  
“Please, just for a couple of hours.”  
“Okay. You lay down on your bed, and I … I take care of the rest.”  
Alec helps Jace onto his bed, one of their hands still intertwined as Magnus, hearing a quietly whispered “Thank you, Magnus. Thank you,” works the spell.  
Alec feels the effect of the spell in many ways. Jace’s grip loosening on his hand. The uproar in his mind quieting down rapidly. Replaced by a foggy calm that makes him kind of dizzy.  
Magnus is beside him instantly, “You okay?”  
“I think I can feel your magic working.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
In reply Magnus gets a slightly dopey smile and a “Don’t be. Feels … feels ….”  
“Strange?” Magnus offers.  
“Good,” Alec corrects.  
Magnus looks at Alec, still crouched beside his brother’s bed, still holding on to his hand tightly as he can, the other now finding Magnus’s. “I’m sorry, darling, I think I underestimated the effect this spell would have on you. I am not practised in operating magic within parabatai bonds.”  
Alec, slumping fully against Magnus now, burying into his arms as they sit on the floor of Jace’s bedroom together, Alec still stubbornly clinging on to Jace’s hand, wordlessly buries just deeper into Magnus’s warmth. Breathes a final “I love you,” before he too slips into sleep.  
“And I love you, my darling.”


	2. Chapter 2

When Jace wakes up hours later he is greeted by a sight he has never seen before, has always though Alec would never allow him to see. Even after coming out Alec, Jace knows, is, no, remains what he has been before in most ways.   
And one of these things is an intensely private person.   
Jace had at least always thought that that had been it, the reason for Alec putting on a professional air even with his parabatai so many times. ‘But maybe …,’ Jace thinks now, ‘maybe it had just been far too painful, … letting yourself feel. Showing, allowing … any complex emotion.’ Jace thinks he gets that now as he watches Alec, asleep, curled into Magnus’s side, giving himself permission to be vulnerable, and to look it, around two of the people who know him best.   
Alec’s expression is relaxed, his head resting against Magnus’s shoulder, but Magnus is wide awake, having watched over Alec, watching Jace now.  
The only sign of exhaustion he can see in Magnus the unglamoured eyes meeting his as he asks, “Feel better?”  
Jace, attempting to smooth his hair back, still stubbornly wildly falling all over his face lets a hum slip past his lips, clears his throat, then “… if by better you mean somewhat less tired and marginally less exhausted … sure, I’m better.”  
“Jace ….” Magnus is cut off by Jace before he can say whatever it is he had meant to.  
“How is Alec?”  
Magnus squints his eyes at him with the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, “Alexander does that too you know.”  
“Does what?”  
Magnus cannot help smile at the pattern continuing, “Tries to get the attention to shift away from him by all means by asking questions that he thinks have nothing to do with him.”  
Jace letting out a sigh, sits up fully now and scoots to lean his back against the headboard, lets his head drop back against it. “You got me.”  
A full smile briefly hushes across Magnus’s features, “And here I was thinking you two are so different, but when it comes down to it it is really only your impulsiveness and Alexander’s need to think things through, sometimes too much though, that separate you.”  
Jace frowns at hearing Magnus’s words.  
“I mean that in the best of ways, Jace. You balance each other out. It’s the reason you are parabatai after all.”  
“You think so?” Jace cannot help ask.  
“I know so.” Magnus answers firmly, focused. “I have seen many parabatai bonds break over my centuries, often only from afar, but ….”  
“But?” Jace looks worried at Magnus now.  
“From what I saw it was because those parabatai were, no, grew too alike over the years. It is a good, a great thing to be fundamentally different in some aspects, otherwise the balance needed between you gets lost.”  
Jace is looking down again as he brings out, voice rough, “I used to put up that huge front, cocky, happy Jace. On the surface. I think I believed it to be the real me for a long time too.”  
“You were, are, both of you well practiced at that, putting up fronts.” Magnus reaches over to run a hand tenderly through Alec’s hair with his next words, “He was hiding love. You were hiding pain. But I suspect since these never not go hand in hand it just made you a more perfect match.”   
“I wish I had been there for him more.”  
“You were,” Magnus assures, “in your way. It was not your job to untangle his soul, but thank you for trying.”  
It is a whisper, “He saved me.”  
Magnus looks over to Jace with a questioning frown.  
“The day we met, him and I, he saved me. He was the first person to love me. The first I can remember anyway, and I suppose I have always felt guilty for not being able to give him that love in the way he longed for it. So thank you for loving him … that way.”  
Magnus’s gaze has grown all soft meeting Jace’s, “It is my pleasure, my honour.”  
“If I had killed you ….” Jace chokes on the thought alone.  
“You didn’t.”  
“ … it would have destroyed him, destroyed us, our bond.”  
“You didn’t, Jace. You did not destroy anything.”  
“Why does everything inside me feel shattered then?” Jace chokes out, sobs and tears swallowed down against the sounds brought out.  
“Because you are starting to heal. And that’s what it feels like. Sharp edged shards poking around inside you, prodding at every still tender bruise on your soul. Only now you know about them. So … you can start to heal. In fact learning to feel them you have already started to heal. The rest …, the rest is hard work, but work you can do if you can dare to be honest with yourself … about everything you are, everyone.”  
“It hurts.”  
Magnus’s look turns bitter, inward somehow, like he is scraping at a memory of his own with the next words, “It will only hurt more.”  
“How can that be what healing feels like?”  
“Because, Jace, healing means building yourself all anew from the pieces that have been torn apart. And some won’t fit anymore, and you’ll have to go looking for new ones.”  
Jace turns away from Magnus then, and Magnus watches Jace’s shoulders then his whole body begin to shake, sitting at the edge of the bed.  
“You won’t lose Alec over this,” Magnus states firmly as he can.  
“How do you know?” Jace’s watery voice asks back.  
“Because you decide what and who to keep. No one else.”  
Magnus hears Jace take in a big shaky breath before he turns and tear-filled eyes meet Magnus’s again. “Thank you.”  
It is about more than this moment.  
“I’ll be here for both of you as long as you’ll want me around.”


	3. Chapter 3

When Alec wakes up he is not sure where he is for a moment or how he ended up there.  
Sitting up on the bed, looking around he realizes it is ‘… Jace’s room.’  
He is alone, but the door has been left halfway open and Alec can hear voices in the hall.  
A wave of dizziness washes over him as he gets to his feet, and he has to sit back down for a moment, take in a deep breath. He feels steadier on his feet as he tries again.  
Halfway to the door he recognizes both of the voices.  
“Typical Valentine. He has always been astonishingly effective in bringing about a maximum of chaos with a minimal number of words.”  
“I can’t believe I let him control me like that.”  
“You could not have known, Jace.”  
“I … I know, Magnus. But he raised me for ten years, I know him better than maybe anyone else alive, and I did not even stop to ask myself whether ….”  
“He did not raise you, Jace, he abused you, manipulated you even back then. He tried to twist your mind into looking at the world in his way. Try and look at it like this, clearly he did not succeed. And that, Jace, is a very very good thing.”  
Alec steps out into the hall then, into Jace’s line of sight. “Alec, you’re awake.”  
Magnus turns away from Jace to look at Alec, a smile playing on his lips and around his eyes as he takes the couple of steps down from the landing he and Jace had stood on, back down to Alec, “Hello, darling.”  
Alec watches a smile light up Jace’s face as Magnus leans in and places a kiss on Alec’s cheek. It takes him by surprise but after a moment’s hesitation he smiles back, shy in a way he has not been around Jace since he himself had first realized he was maybe developing more than parabatai feels for his parabatai.  
“What were you two talking about?” Alec asks with honest curiosity.  
Jace slumps back against the wall, clearly torn about how to explain any of what is eating away at him.  
Magnus draws Alec’s attention back to himself with a brief caress of his cheek, “I’ll let you two talk.”  
As Magnus walks past Alec he quickly reaches for and grasps one of Magnus’s hands, feeling the rings on it cool against his still sleepwarm skin, “Where are you going?”  
Magnus does not miss the note of trepidation in Alec’s voice. “Darling, I’m only going to have a look around the Institute, how the wards are holding up after everything that has happened,” he lifts their linked hands to his lips, kisses the skin of Alec’s hand softly, eyes, still unglamoured, never leaving his. “It will do no one any good, me lying awake another night because I worry my head off about you not being safe here.”  
“Can’t I stay at yours for a while?” Alec blurts out without thinking.  
Magnus pulls Alec into a tight hug then, “Of course you can. Always. I better double check everything then, so we both can sleep knowing your family and friends are safe inside these walls.”  
“Okay,” Alec says with a smile, squeezing Magnus tight before he watches him walk of with another glance and a wink thrown back his way that would have made him blush not too long ago.  
Turning his attention back to his parabatai he finds him standing still slumped against the wall, arms crossed over his chest now.  
“So what was all that talk of Valentine about?”  
Jace takes a deep breath, it sounds, it feels filled with pain, Alec can feel the anxiety spike all of a sudden on Jace’s side of the bond, their bond. Jace wrings for words.  
“What did he say now?” Alec asks, anger seeping into his voice.  
“I was nothing more than a convenient thing,” Jace spits out the last word, “for him to experiment on.”  
“But he … .”  
“He is not my father, Alec. Turns out he played pretend in way more ways than I had ever thought. I am an experiment to him, … nothing more. And he …, he is nothing to me.”  
“Who told you?”  
“He did. I am not his, not Jocelyn’s. I have no idea who I am.”  
“How do you know it was the truth?” Alec asks, look of confusion on his face as he leans against the wooden panelling of the wall.  
Jace just stands there, staring ahead as he answers, “He had the Soulsword in his hands.”  
“So …, Clary is NOT your sister?”  
Jace finally turns his head to look at Alec, “No, she never was.”  
Alec lets out a shaky breath before asking, “What are you gonna do?”  
Jace stands there eyes searching, finding focus when they return to Alec, decision made, yet fear clear in his features, “I’m gonna tell her.”


End file.
